"I had my dinner before you came."
"Well, then, at any rate you must not continue standing. Won't you share this seat with me?"
She seated herself upon the bench, took off her hat, smoothed down her apron, and appeared happy at seeing him eating heartily.
"Don't you find that dish refreshing, Mr. Seraphin?"
"You have done me a real act of charity," he replied. "This bread, is excellent. Who taught you how to make bread?"
"I learned from mother; but there isn't much art in making that sort of bread, Mr. Seraphin. The food which people in the country eat does not require artistic preparation. It only needs good, pure material, so that it may give strength to labor."
"I suppose you attend to the kitchen altogether, do you not?"
"Yes, Mr. Seraphin. That's not very difficult, our meals are of the plainest kind. We have meat once a week, on Sundays. When the work is unusually hard, as in harvest time, we have meat oftener. We raise our own meat and cure it."
"You have assumed household cares at quite an early age, Mechtild."
"Early? I am seventeen now, and am the oldest. Mother has a great deal of trouble with the small ones, so the housework falls chiefly to my share. It does not require any great exertion, however, to do it. Plain and saving is our motto. Mother specially recommends four things: industry, cleanliness, order, and economy. She advises me not to neglect any one of these points when once I will have a household of my own."